


Zero Good Ending

by Ma_Kir



Category: Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Family, Love, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 14:02:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15686868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ma_Kir/pseuds/Ma_Kir
Summary: In another life, Hisau Maiya reflects on the family that she has gained in Emiya Kiritsugu, Irisviel von Einzbern, and the children that they have together.This is an extension of a dream vignette that Illya had in a segment of my epic fanfic Fate/Stay Life. I decided, after talking with another commenter, Luna_wolf, that it would be cool to see how this could have been like, how this might have been.





	Zero Good Ending

Hisau Maiya watches as Kiritsugu plays in the garden with the children.

She's still watchful. She can't help it even though, technically, they are not in enemy territory. Even now, her finger itches where her 9mm Glock or her Calico M950 used to be. Those weapons, those tools, were as much a part of her as she was a part of Kiritsugu ... as she is a part of Kiritsugu.

But they still have enemies. She is always mindful of that. Granted, most of their more powerful enemies were six feet under, in pieces, held in remnants at the Holy Church, or were in the process of being dissected in an Association Workshop somewhere, but the Magus Killer Emiya Kiritsugu angered a few forces in the Moonlit World and out during the course of many a job, and Maiya had been his accomplice, his Spell-Caster apprentice. She is a part of his body, while he is the mind. That will never change. It was already clear from the very beginning of their time that she would follow him to the end.

Yet Kiritsugu has changed. His dark eyes are no longer emotionless, but vibrant with a soft form of world-weary resignation and serenity they had never possessed before. He still has his stubble, and messy black hair but he doesn't really wear his trench coat and suit anymore. More often than not, he wears a blue yukata along with the children. He's cut down on his smoking considerably. Sometimes, going through the house, Maiya even finds old, full cigarette packs that she ends up making a point of throwing out.

But more than all of that, Kiritsugu smiles. He smiles so much more now.

"It seems the children are having fun."

Irisviel von Einzbern sits beside Maiya on the veranda of the Emiya residence. The lady is dressed in a bright, colourful red and peach Western summer dress, her pale arms bare and her skirt not long enough to cover her long porcelain legs. Maiya has observed that Madame looks lovely no matter what she wears. Sometimes she wears a pale or pink yukata herself, with her white hair bound up behind her. She has her hair a ponytail today, in Western dress, because of the summer heat and sunshine. A part of Maiya is amazed that Irisviel doesn't burn easily in the sunlight, given her fair skin. To be fair, however, Kiritsugu has wondered, aloud about Maiya along those lines as well, even though she often sits in the shade when she can.

"Kiritsugu is having fun." Maiya observes, cross-legged on the veranda in her comfortable jogging suit and sweat pants, with just enough pockets to contain the tools she needs in case the Fujimura Clan aren't as competent in guarding this area as Kiritsugu claims they are. She still doesn't feel that abandoning the Castle in the Forest was necessarily a wise tactic, though given how they left Einzbern Castle in Germany -- namely, in ruins and ashes to get Illyasviel back to them -- it made sense. The Einzbern Clan no longer exists, their Clan Head deceased by an Origin Bullet, but Irisviel in particular wanted to put as much of her former family behind her as possible.

"Him too." Irisviel laughs, a soft tinkling sound. It is beautiful. Everything about Madame, as a homunculus, as a woman is beautiful. The way she places her hand against her mouth, her own smile, the ruby glitter of her eyes, the roundness and generosity of her pale figure, her warmth, and her kindness, it was no wonder what Kiritsugu fell in love with Irisviel von Einzbern, that he made her his wife. Sometimes, by comparison, Maiya wonders what Kiritsugu still sees in her: why she is even still here, why he's ... why they have done just so much for her.

"Oh Maiya!" Irisviel claps her hands together, leaning next to her. "You're actually smiling!"

"Madame?" Maiya blinks. Sure enough, one of the children shrieked in delight as Kiritsugu carries them on his shoulders. And one of the corners of her mouth is turned up. She can't help it. If she is the innards, and Kiritsugu the brain -- the brain which had been grim, calculating, direct, and concise in its thoughts and goals, the central processing unit of the machine that was the Magus Killer, and Maiya as its accessory, its extension -- then what did it say about him, about them now, that Kiritsugu could laugh like that, and spend most of his days playing with the children, being a husband, being a relatively good neighbour?

"You should do it more often, Maiya." Irisviel says, her own smile like light. "It suits you. You've really come a long way." She sighs, settling back into the veranda. "We all have."

It is an understatement. Kiritsugu vanished into Germany after taking a contract from the House of Einzbern, for what should have been the Fourth Holy Grail War. Maiya had prepared the groundwork, had received occasional faxes from Kiritsugu, had maintained caches of their weapons, resources, contacts, Kiritsugu's Origin Bullets ... even his favourite brand of cigarettes for this Ritual conflict between seven magi and seven Heroic Spirits. He'd even undertaken a marriage contract to the House to make this all possible. To make his dream possible.

There had been long stretches of silence between them. A part of Maiya wondered if Kiritsugu got more caught up in his marriage contract than he had anticipated. And she found that prospect didn't bother her that much. If anything, it made Maiya more sad that she knew, deep down, that Kiritsugu hadn't forgotten it had always been a job to accomplish his one, true goal. That this wasn't for his happiness. And all she could do was make sure that his plan would work, to be the machine when he could not to do what had to do what had to be done.

Yet there had been one last communique that fateful day, a few years ago. And it changed everything.

Then there had been the Castle in the snow, a broken series of Bounded Fields destroyed from the inside, incendiary rounds, slaughtered homunculi, gunsmoke, and a pale little girl held in Kiritsugu's arms as a tall, slender, woman of white wove threads and constructs through more homunculi with halberds and livery to the car as Maiya fired her guns, and took off as the Castle literally exploded behind them. It was said that the Magus Killer retired when he took on the Einzbern contract. But, in reality, the Magus Killer had truly hung up his trench coat after the death of the House of Einzbern: to save his wife, and daughter.

For the most part.

They had met with Tohsaka Tokiomi. And, somehow, Kiritsugu and Irisviel had convinced the magus to let them live -- in peace -- on his land. Perhaps the Tohsaka Head just didn't want to antagonize the former Magus Killer, in part. Maybe the input of Irisviel as the de facto Head of House Einzbern also made a difference in negotiations. But in reality, it was Kiritsugu who had offered Tokiomi one favour. Just one. And for all of Tokiomi's stance on traditionalism, he is a canny man. He accepted Kiritsugu's proposal, despite having pretty much destroyed a major part of his Family's legacy. Maiya recalls Madame disliking the magus immensely, and she has to admit ... knowing what they do now of the Head's second daughter, and what happened to her, she can't blame her. Especially with what happened with Illyasviel ... especially after what happened to her own son ...

The intervening years had been building relations with the Fujimura Clan, which Kiritsugu did well. Then came the visitors from Atlas to ... treat Illyasviel. It had been touch and go for a while. The experts, bought with her's and Kiritsugu's hard cash assets, managed to disengage Madame from the leylines and structure of the Grail, but Illya had been harder to deal with as a child human-homunculus hybrid. Some fairly advanced geis contracts were employed on the experts to make sure they did not speak of this to anyone -- Atlas, or otherwise -- or even remember the situation: the result of yet more favours that Kiritsugu had been owed, and he called on. Kiritsugu said that Illya weighed less than his rifle, and she grew to know that on the nights when Illya was sick from her treatments, and she found herself holding her in her arms when Irisviel and Kiritsugu were just exhausted from their turns with her.

When Illya eventually pulled through, after those grueling sessions, Maiya vowed that no one would touch a hair on her head again. For just as she was a part of Kiritsugu, Illya was a part of the man that made her too.

"Ji-san! Come on!" Emiya Shirou calls out. "It's my turn!"

Shirou. The boy's shouts, first breaking Maiya's thoughts, bring her back to that day when Tohsaka Tokiomi himself came to their residence, and wanted to collect on Kiritsugu's favour. It turned out that Matou Zouken had been performing some unethical experiments with the remnants of the Grail, in an attempt to resurrect and continue the Heaven's Feel Ritual. For all Tokiomi wanted his chance at the Grail, something had gone wrong in the attempt. He wanted Kiritsugu for clean-up duty against his former ally. Maiya isn't sure she ever saw Madame be as angry at another person before as she was at that man, especially when they found out ... what Zouken had made his attempt at a Grail Vessel from.

After that incident, culminating in a terrible Fire, and expending many resources to bring down an ancient, mad magus that existed in more than one being at once ... including one more, their Family had come out of it with the extinction of the Matou, a vow to never associate with the Tohsaka again and their solemn promise to leave them alone ... and a young boy whose entire life had been destroyed.

That had been the last job of the Magus Killer. Not killing Matou Zouken and his parody of a Ritual, but saving a young child from the Fire. For a lifetime of death and destruction, Maiya likes to think there is some symmetry to that fact.

Maiya related more to Shirou than anyone. She had been a child when they recruited her into the army, when they trained her to kill, but she had forgotten her parents, her family, even her name. Trauma had erased the rest of it under the hands of those soldiers, and the squirming, squalling bundle they had stolen from her until Kiritsugu found her and gave her new purpose ...

Shirou had been the same age as her son would have been. Kiritsugu tried to give him a potion to allow him to recover from the trauma, as he had her, but sometimes he still had nightmares. Madame took to Shirou immediately, had healed what burns and damage he had left with her advanced magecraft, had held him in her arms like the son that he would become. But Maiya would put Shirou to bed, would hold him, would rub his back as he cried into her chest, would soothe him like the son that had been taken from her, whom she had never known ...

"I am the lady of this House!" Illyasviel von Einzbern calls out, sticking out her tongue at Shirou and all those present. "I am the Princess! You get your turn when I say you do! Heheheehee!"

Maiya recalls the time she came into Shirou's room, not long after they'd introduced him to Illyasviel, and finding Illyasviel curled up against the boy, and showing what was what. That girl, right now, shrieking on Kiritsugu's shoulders, had her father's will but her mother's love in her. Shirou never had a chance, a fact that both Madame and Kiritsugu know all too well for themselves.

"Oh no!" Illya screams. "It's the Tiger! Onii-chan! Protect me!" 

"How dare you, you brat!" A young, brown haired girl with light eyes roars. "Taste my shinai!"

"Fuji-nee, noooooo ..." Shirou shouts.

"Oh dear." Irisviel titters as the children run away from the other girl. "Taiga-chan never stops, does she?"

"It doesn't look like she does." Maiya admits, continuing to watch the pandemonium, and wondering if in her time roaming this earth she would have ever seen herself in the middle of this kind of situation, and still finding herself at something of a loss.

She and Madame watch Kiritsugu talking to Taiga, ruffling her hair, speaking to her in English. He's been taking to teaching her English, in the midst of supposedly teaching her how to fight. That is often Maiya's responsibility as well, though she and Kiritsugu only know basic kendo: with him knowing a little more than she. She isn't sure how the heir and daughter of the local oyabun's adopted son came here so often, and how she survived Kiritsugu and Irisviel's abortive attempts at cooking -- with only herself and now Shirou's intervention keeping the family from slow death by food poisoning, though perhaps that is an answer in and of itself.

"She reminds him of Shirley." Maiya murmurs, softly.

"I know." Irisviel replies. "He told me too. It's funny, though. From what Kiritsugu told me, she couldn't look more different."

"It's the shape of their eyes, I think." Maiya says. "That and the earnest look on her face. The certainty."

Irisviel turns to her Maiya. "Did he ever show you a picture of her?"

Maiya shakes her head. "No, Madame.  But he told me about the same."

If there had been any pictures of Shirley, none of them had survived Alimango Island, along with the rest of Kiritsugu's lost childhood. She used to wonder if Kiritsugu released his anger and rage, his hurt, into Irisviel's arms as he had with her. It was a necessary release valve, a safety for the sanity of the human machine. Maiya did it for him a few times, holding him as he cried. She knew about his father, about Natalia Kaminsky, about Shirley ... And she knows that Madame does too. But it is different. Madame is different from her.

"Kiritsugu looks so happy."

Maiya looks at Madame. The woman's eyes are soft, in love, genuinely in quiet joy seeing her husband not hurting anymore. She and Madame exchange a look, and they know. Maiya looks down for a few moments.

"It's because of you, Madame." Maiya murmurs. "It's because of you that he's ... really alive now."

And Maiya knows it's true. Before Irisviel, Kiritsugu was basically a machine. He had a formidable code of living and Justice, but he had only eaten and maintained himself to survive. She had followed suit when he saved her, taken her under his wing. He is ... a better person with Madame, than he ever was without her, with Maiya.

"Maybe." Maiya feels Irisviel take her hand in her own. "But he wouldn't be alive today if it hadn't been for you."

Maiya still doesn't know what to think about that. How to feel about it. She doesn't say anything as the other woman talks. "I had just been a shallow being. A hollow puppet. Grandfather wanted me as a Vessel that could defend itself, and nothing else. He discarded me on a whim. But Kiritsugu went out there, into the snow and the dark, and the wolves and evil spirits of our domain, and he took me back." Irisviel's voice grows far away. "He spent years teaching me about the outside world, on how to fight, how to live ... I became human, because of him. Maybe, for a while, I became human for the both of us. And when Illya was born ... I saw him change. There were treatments, then. Grandfather wanted her to be a contingency." She shakes her head. "But we conceived her in love. I was just a tool when I met Kiritsugu. Now I'm a woman. And he made that possible."

"I ..." Maiya tries to find the words. "I was the same. When I was ... in the army." When she was a child soldier. "After, when the soldiers ..." When they raped her. "He found me. I didn't even know my name and he gave me one. He gave me a purpose. I ..." She slowly shakes her head. "I could have lived with that, Madame. Just that. It's funny. Kiritsugu says he can't fix anything, because of his nature." Maiya muses. "But he fixed us."

And he helped her find out who she was. Where she came from. She had stayed with them after Shirou came, but it was finding Shirou that made her realize that she needed to find her son. Kiritsugu had Illya and Shirou to take care of now. He had his wife to take care of. She saw herself, for a time as superfluous. She would still serve him. But, as she told him -- told them -- that night, she wanted to do something for herself, to find out who she is now that the brain had changed, and the innards were no longer easy in the body that they once were.

" _Can I come with you, Maiya?"_

Maiya hadn't expected that. Kiritsugu had simply given orders. Not aggressively, nor overbearingly. It had simply been a matter of fact, of direction. He'd never particularly asked her of anything. It completely hit her unprepared. A part of her wanted to refuse him. This is something she had to do for herself. It was her own wish. And she didn't feel like she was needed anymore beyond occasionally guarding or taking care of Illyasviel and Shirou. They were a peaceful family now. Maiya still smelled of gunsmoke. She had one more debt to pay. But the way he looked at her that night was different. It had been gradually different for some time. She recalls Madame looking at the two of them, and nodding to Kiritsugu, squeezing his hand.

_"Go with her, Kiritsugu. Maiya ... we want your son with us. You are family."_

It changed everything, that day when Kiritsugu sent her the communique from Germany. In more ways than she had ever thought. She agreed to Kiritsugu accompanying her. Not as the Magus Killer, but as her friend, her ally, her ...

They cut through the Army like garbage, in a deep visceral bond born of smoke, blood, violence, and the sheer will to accomplish, cleaved together roughly, but vitally as though this messed up World had some reason.

Sigma wrestles Shirou off to the side, in the shade like his mother. Kiritsugu and Irisviel helped raise him as though he were their own son as well. Maiya couldn't save her son from some ghosts, worse as they had apparently deliberately made him from a soldier with Magic Circuits as a weapon like she had been, but she is doing her best to give him a childhood with the people she loves. The day they found him, she and Kiritsugu became intimate again: with her initiating it, with a wholeheartedness that even with her bond to him she had never felt before. And she felt the same from him. It wasn't cold copulation, or animal fucking, but a slow, joyous, intimacy ... making love between two people that cared and understood each other.

She didn't know what to make of it. Kiritsugu was married now. He and Madame had a family. But, somehow, with the details that still needed ironing out, and her son with her again -- with the chance to get to know and raise him, her shy, quiet boy -- she knew, for the first time in her life, that it would be all right.

"I admit." Irisviel says. "I didn't know what to think of you at first, Maiya. When I first saw you. But you helped save my daughter. You helped give me a son. And then another." She smiles at her. "You are good for my husband. You are part of his life in a way I can never be. And that is okay. If things had ... progressed ..." She sighs. "I would have hoped you would have stayed with him and Illya. I'm just glad ... I can see all of this. That this is our reality. Right now. Living."

"Well, Madame." Maiya says after a while. "I can say that you are definitely a part of his life in a way I haven't been, or could be. But ..." She thinks about it for a few moments, watching her sons play. "I think even if he fixed us, we fixed him too."

"Yes. I think so too." Irisviel says, grasping her hand, leaning against her side. "I think we all fixed each other."

Maiya looks at Kiritsugu, meeting her eyes, across the yard. He smiles at her, a deep passion beyond all the violence they ever committed together, the man who saved her child, the man whose name she took, and even after learning her original name, would take no other. Maiya looks at the woman at her side, Madame, who she will still not call Iri no matter how often the other asks, as she is a Lady, as she feels soft and warm against Maiya's rough, sharp-angled shell. And Hisau Maiya finds herself smiling at the man she loves, playing with their children, even as she returns Madame's grasp: even as the innards of her rearrange themselves to this new reality, she vows to continue to protect all those she gained: tooth and nail and to the death if necessary. All those that she loves.


End file.
